


A Different Tasty Perspective

by Lacertae



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Background Relationships, Blood, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Friendship/Love, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Trollstuck, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-31 18:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3988822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacertae/pseuds/Lacertae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*Main Terezi/Nepeta, pale Equius/Nepeta, black Vriska/Terezi, others*</p><p>Originally written for the AU prompt "live in the same apartment building/dorm, both trying to do laundry at 3am but one of the machines is broken so they can’t do it at the same time".</p><p>Terezi isn’t exactly known for her house skills.</p><p>She has lived on her own for a long time, lost in the middle of nowhere in a forest that smelled like lavender and musk and pesky green everywhere around her, so this whole moving out into space and to a ship-campus sort of messes a little with her, so to speak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This idea started with a 4k drabble and became a 20k+ fanfic, which is why i decided to split it into smaller chapters. Since the fic is already finished, the updates will be steady, so I hope you will like!

**Chapter 01**

Terezi isn’t exactly known for her house skills.

She has lived on her own for a long time, lost in the middle of nowhere in a forest that smelled like lavender and musk and pesky green everywhere around her, so this whole moving out into space and to a ship-campus sort of messes a little with her, so to speak.

It takes her two weeks to learn where everything is, and that scribbling on the walls of her communal hive isn’t allowed unless she uses washable paint –it’s a far cry from the liberty she had when she lived in the woods, and could spend all her time doodling on every inch of every wall of her hive– and by the time she’s settled in, the blocks of her apartment being at the top of the building, everything is a cluttered mess already.

Exactly the way she likes it.

Law books are scattered everywhere, together with all the scalemates she managed to bring with her (stacked neatly inside her modus until it was full of them, colourful and reminding her of home with every breath she takes until she is settled in her new place and spreads them around in a mock reminder of the hive she’s left behind), food is scarce because in her haste to taste everything, from the walls to the doors to the people she meets in her communal hive, she is left full and drowsy, and clothes have piled up in a dirty stack in a corner of her respiteblock.

It is their not-so-nice smell, almost overpowering that of the cherry red chalk she uses strictly in the privacy of her respiteblock, that makes her decide to finally use the laundry block that is comfortably situated at the bottom of the building.

She gathers everything in her arms and dumps the smelly socks, underwear and clothes into a huge, unassuming plastic trash bag, ties it together with quick fingers and grabs her walking cane; she doesn’t really need it, unless it is to make a scene –she is perfectly capable of discerning her surroundings thanks to her unparalleled skills with sniffing and licking– but it throws people off, and it’s funny to smell their reactions.

Plus, it’s still her weapon, and no good troll would ever leave the safety of her hive without one, especially someone like Terezi, who has plans –big ones– for her future.

A good Legislacerator needs to always make sure they are protected in case of a sudden, lawless attack. It is only proper.

She drops the plastic bag down the stairs and watches it roll down merrily until it hits the opposite wall, then runs down the stairs and repeats it for what feels like forever. The bag makes a soft noise every time it bumps, and it keeps her entertained enough, her cackles and the bag the only noises down the flight of stairs. After all there is a perfectly working elevator in the hive, but Terezi is used to moving up and down on her own two feet, and elevators always smell badly to her.

When she gets to the laundry block, her nose is assaulted with a sharp, acid smell of cleaning powder and soap, and she scrunches up her nose and sniffs her way through the room.

The closest machine has a huge note over it which reads ‘out of order’, and the one on the other corner is in the same condition without the note, but Terezi knows it is broken because (and you don’t need to be an investigator to get it) it has a huge blade still stuck into it. She guesses someone from the hive did not like having to wait. So, she walks to what appears to be the only working machine, which much to her displeasure is already in use.

It is quite weird, since it’s the middle of the night and nobody should be around, but the machine is slowly rolling a load of clothes inside, all soapy and disgustingly smelling like chemicals, and Terezi is annoyed that someone had her same idea.

She turns around to check if the owner of the clothes is within the confines of the room, lips parted to take in the smells, and there is a noise coming from behind a row of driers. She grunts and drops the bag onto the floor, brandishing her cane in one hand without deploying it yet.

“Who’s there?” she murmurs to herself, her lips twitching upwards in a pleased smirk.

She likes a challenge, even though the laundry block wouldn’t be her first choice location for a battleground.

There is only the sound of scuttling around, and Terezi takes a step forwards, sniffing the air.

“You cannot hide from the prosecutor!” she sneers, still as quietly as before. No need to alert the possible threat!

Two more steps, and she hears someone getting ready to move from behind the last drier, and she turns that way, grip on the cane tightening, and–

“The intrepid huntress bounces out of her hiding place, surprising the– oh?”

A troll has jumped out from behind the drier, her expression quickly shifting from smug to surprised. She’s shorter than Terezi, with a blue hat that smells like acrylics and an equally blue tail swishing behind her, and horns that are wide and flat. She seems as surprised to see Terezi as Terezi is surprised to ‘see’ her, and she halts in the middle of her pounce, which seemed a little like an ambush until she stopped.

“You’re not Equius!” she says, sounding and smelling utterly disappointed.

“Nope!” Terezi replies, relaxing her grip on her cane and swinging it until it’s resting on her shoulder, looking as casual as she can be. The stranger’s words register in her mind, and she is instantly curious. “But the intrepid huntress has left a surprised troll in her wake nonetheless!”

The troll giggles, rolling up the sleeves of her coat, and smiles up at her. “I’m sorry! I was purretty sure my meowrail would be the one coming inside, so I was purrepared to tackle him!”

That explained who this ‘Equius’ guy was, and Terezi snorts at the use of cat puns. “No moirail in sight, but perhaps you will find yourself with your hands full of a very sticky situation! Is a huntress skilled enough to battle a dangerous, disgruntled dragoness?”

Eyes widening at the offer, the foreign troll takes a step back in mock-shock, but she recovers quickly, and then Terezi finds herself the centre of a one-troll carousel, the still unnamed stranger twirling around her and smiling.

“This huntress apologizes to the mighty dragoness fur disturbing her during her pillaging!” she eyes the plastic bag with keen eyes. “It seems she has been very lucky, so maybe she will turn a blind eye to this daring huntress! After all, she was just seeking her own prey and had no ill intentions!”

Terezi snorts, and swings down the cane until it hits the floor with a satisfying ‘clunk’. It is clear the other troll hasn’t noticed she can’t see, which is just as well. She is feeling magnanimous, and the unnoticed faux-pas is amusing from her… point of view. Hehehe.

“Unfortunately the dragoness is not satisfied with the little loot she managed to rip from unsuspecting lawless criminals, but she is not harbouring any ill will towards an unknown passer-by, as long as the huntress is on the side of the law, even if she disturbed her pillaging,” she replies. “But your apologies might be accepted if the huntress decides to offer this dragoness her name!”

“The huntress makes a show of thinking about it, but ultimately she relents!” with a grin, she thrusts forwards her hand. “I’m Nepeta Leijon, Creative Writing and Litterature Mixed Media Major! And what is the fearsome dragoness doing when she is not busy casting the shadows of fear into people?”

“In truth this fearsome dragoness is secretly learning the tools of trade of a Legislacerator!” Terezi replies, striking a pose. “I’m Terezi Pyrope” she adds, grabbing Nepeta’s hand in hers for a quick shake. “Is that tumbling load in there yours?”

“Yes! I’ve been meaning to wash my things fur a while, but I’ve been busy,” Nepeta replies sheepishly, and they move towards the only functioning machine in the block. “Asked my meowrail to keep me company but purrhaps he’s been delayed!” she winks at Terezi. “Got the company of a fearless dragoness in his stead, I think I was actually lucky!”

Terezi is a little surprised, because she sniffs excitement and appreciation coming from Nepeta, and then realises with a start that they have been mock-FLARPing, and that while Terezi is used to doing that in the privacy of her own block, it has been a long while since she has had someone to have fun with, and that maybe it is not quite so common to indulge in random FLARPing with a stranger she’s just met.

She guesses it’s Vriska’s influence that made her so brash, but she also guesses this is one of those times where she doesn’t even mind that. She still makes a mental note to fuss and annoy the shit out of her next time she sees her on Trollian. Or around, whichever comes first.

Then she remembers she’s always been blunt and callous and that is why she became friends with Vriska in the first place, but that doesn’t mean she won’t destroy her during their next FLARPing session.

“I guess it would be within the realm of the possible to ask the great huntress if she can recount a tale of gruesome victory over her many enemies while we wait for her load to be done?” she asks instead, grinning. “Dragons aren’t famous for being happy when they are bored, which you might know already”.

Nepeta is still smelling like fresh leaves and happiness, and she bounces on the balls of her feet before she falls down into a crouch; ignoring the fact that the floor is pretty dirty, considering it’s a shared laundry block, she looks up at Terezi, who similarly unbothered by the state of the floor joins her down, and they shuffle until they are sitting as comfortably as they can, their backs against the wall.

“Now that the Huntress and the Dragoness are chummy and seated together, it is time to share a tale of gruesome purrowess!”

And that is exactly what happens.

For an hour –between Nepeta finishing her cleaning cycle and Terezi finally starting her own– in the middle of the night and feeling like they are sharing a bit of a secret, huddled up on the floor of the laundry block, the two swap tales. Terezi isn’t sure when they bleed from FLARPing straight into recounting actual adventurous tales from before moving to the Academy starship grounds, but this is exactly what happens, and the artificial lights of the block are not the only things flickering slightly as they talk.

It is only when Nepeta’s moirail actually appears, dishevelled and sweaty and smelling distinctly pungent to Terezi’s nostrils, that the two shake themselves out of their newly acquired camaraderie, elbowing each other slightly as they stand up to meet the tall blueblood troll with a broken horn.

He towers over Nepeta by a good head and a half, and Terezi is only taller than Nepeta by a bit, so the guy towers over her too, but Terezi has never been intimidated by a fellow troll in her life and she won’t start now.

“Nepeta, I’m deeply sorry for my lateness, but I regret to admit I have fallen asleep,” the troll mutters, rubbing his hands together and perspiring even more.

Terezi is not the best at manners –another thing she has in common with Vriska and that falls under the ‘not qualities’ part of her personal resume– but she manages not to wrinkle her nose and back away from him.

“It’s ok, you’re furrgiven Equius!” Nepeta seems completely unbothered by his state, because she stands up, slaps her hand onto his arm and turns towards Terezi. “Mighty Dragoness, allow me to introduce you to my moirail, Equius Zahhak, Robotechnician Major!”

Equius appears even more startled, because he shies away from Nepeta’s touch and looks at Terezi, head inclined slightly towards her chest, openly seeking out her symbol and its proper colour.

“Oh, it is a pleasure to meet you,” he seems slightly mollified, which amuses Terezi. “I must ask you to forgive my moirail’s manners, she shouldn’t indulge in such… vulgar displays of childish behaviour unbecoming of her status”.

Terezi can’t stop her nostrils from flaring a bit, ignoring the overpowering smell of sweat to dig deeper, and she sniffs a little bit of flippancy there, a slight disdain and almost an inquiry –like he’s checking to see if she agrees. This isn’t the first troll she encounters with this kind of attitude, so even the smell is familiar.

She wonders –and she’ll discover during the next few weeks that the answer is yes– if he’s appreciative of her blood colour because it’s slightly above the middle of the hemospectrum, visible on her symbol, and if that means he’s a bit of a blood purist.

Terezi idly wonders –and that is also a thing she’ll discover, but that will come at a later time, very much later– what he’d do with Karkat if he were to meet him, since he is very obvious in his hemoanonymity.

She can feel herself smirk at that thought –she is quite sure she would get a kick of this guy interacting with old Karkat– and she does not attempt to school her smirk into something more bearable. She has quite a status to maintain, and by status she means her FLARP persona. Dragonsona.

“I wouldn’t know about that, dragonesses don’t like it when puny guards interfere in bonding between friends!” she lets her smirk turn feral, which has scared away a lot of witnesses in the past, both fictive and real. “Unless they want to face justice and a sometimes merciful, quick end”.

Nepeta, at first looking a bit bummed by Equius’ refusal to play along, seems to cheer up immediately. It is a bit sad to see that her moirail is a stuck-up, but Terezi can’t say much about it now, after all she’s just met the guy. Maybe he’s not that bad, even if it’s not up to her to decide. She does not want to go ashen for her new friend. The grey is fussy and Terezi isn’t a miss FussyFuss McFussypants, nor is she a Meddlesome Meddler, both terms Vriska helpfully associates with other friends of theirs, both of which would gladly take up an ashen (or pale) mantle if it needed be.

Terezi dislikes that. Justice isn’t a matter of grey areas, and besides… conciliatory tastes bad to her. Not as strong, not as vicious, not as sharp and not as interesting. Justice is complete, no need to be conciliatory about it.

That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t want a moirail, or a leaf or two for her ashen slot, but she won’t go looking herself, not now that her attention is focused on her career and studies. She knows that she _will_ find the rest of her quadrants, and she has high hopes now that she’s away from her secluded hive on the planet… but it doesn’t seem interesting yet? It might be just her, she doesn’t know.

Adult trolls leave the planet to complete their education and get integrated in their society, and any faux-pas will be rewarded with culling, because no matter how much things are changing after the old Empress was defeated, they haven’t changed _that_ much.

The main thing is that the old Imperial Condescension wouldn’t have allowed the idea of career to be distinctly different from the need for repopulation, but thankfully heirs and ideas can change, and the newly appointed Imperial Benevolence has a nicer approach that doesn’t make the use of Imperial Drones a matter of breed or death.

It isn’t enforced as it was in the past, which is probably because HIB is a young troll the same age as Terezi is, as opposed to someone who has been Empress for centuries of sweeps and has outlived every single other troll of her generation.

All these thoughts pass through Terezi’s mind for only a second, and it’s a second too much already, because while Terezi enjoys law and justice, she dislikes politics a lot. They taste bitter and full of deceit, and she hates deceit.

But politics are too high of a goal for her, she isn’t even a Legislacerator yet, so she has to bide her time until she becomes so big that nobody can hide from her.

Small steps until they aren’t small anymore.

Equius, it seems, does not like to see her indulging his moirail with FLARPing. There is a crease on his forehead that Terezi has half a mind to poke with a finger, but she does not know him enough yet to butt into his personal space. (This, too, will come at a later time.)

She would do that for Karkat, and she’s a bit bummed out to realise how much she misses him. She hopes that wherever he went, he’s secure and still wrapped up in his anonymity.

Nepeta ignores Equius and his attempts to make her hurry along, dumps all her freshly washed laundry into his arms (secured away in a washingbowl so that it doesn’t touch his skin, Terezi notes) and then pushes him out of the room, deaf to his protests.

The two giggle, sharing a last, amusing moment of companionship, then Nepeta thrusts her hand out.

“Your grubphone, you dummy,” she says when Terezi, puzzled and with a metaphorical question mark above her head, attempts to place her closed fist onto her offered hand.

Terezi rolls her eyes and decaptchalogues the phone, and sniffs Nepeta as she types her trollian handle into it.

“Here! So we don’t lose each other! Hehe! Good luck with your Law classes Miss Terezi the Dragoness!”

“A dragon never loses sight of her newfound companions, don’t worry,” she reassures her new friend, relieved to know she won’t have to hunt Nepeta down by knocking onto each door of the communal hive and thus somewhat disappointed that she won’t have the excuse to bother every single one of her new hivemates.

That was the right thing to say though, because there is a fresh smell of relief and happiness, and then Nepeta waves at her and skips out of the door.

The laundry block is incredibly silent without her chatter, but Terezi is starting to feel quite tired, so she has no problem dumping her clean, lemon-scented laundry inside the same bag as before, hauling it inside her Sylladex, and climb the stairs to her new apartment hive.

The cool sopor waiting for her in her recuperacoon welcomes her body like an embrace, and she falls asleep thinking that it’s a new record –she was able to meet a friend the first week of troll college.

She can’t wait to wave this under Vriska’s nose.

Terezi isn’t exactly known for her house skills.

She has lived on her own for a long time, lost in the middle of nowhere in a forest that smelled like lavender and musk and pesky green everywhere around her, so this whole moving out into space and into a ship-campus sort of messes a little with her, so to speak.


	2. Chapter 02

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lateness, but I really dislike editing for pesterlogs *shifty eyes*

**Chapter 02**

The law classes are a whirlwind of activity, and Terezi has no time to relax there.

Two trolls (a greenblood and a maroonblood) are culled after the first day, reducing their number for fifty to forty-eight, which is still too high to be allowed to the next semester. If Terezi is right, there will be at least ten dropouts by the end of the first two weeks, and hopefully those will not be culled.

The campus takes up most of the ship’s base level, as it should be because despite having moved from the surface of Alternia, most of the population there is still comprised by trolls who have barely moved up from teens to adults, bodies still unused to their stronger limbs after their last pupation.

There is less of a chance for actual adults to cull kids on sight like there was on the planet (only Jadebloods and some others were allowed on the surface for this exact reason) but the few adults on patrol are carefully monitored themselves and have as little interaction as possible with the younger generations.

Most of the teachers are, in fact, not trolls at all –between Drones and Droids and AI cyborgs, the only adults Terezi has seen since the start of her first semester are mechanics and a few Threshecutioners, the only actual force which allows adults and youngsters to interact freely.

Karkat’s aspiration to be a Threshecutioner makes more sense considering nobody expects mutants to even want to go into police force, and Terezi knows she’s the only one who knows of his real blood colours aside for his other nerdy friend whom she’s never met (yet). Unfortunately they lived in different sectors on Alternia, and because of this they were slotted into different campus-ships.

Not having him around lessens the fun, but having found Nepeta makes up for that, and for not having seen Vriska since two weeks before. Vriska is on this campus, but her new hive is on the other side of the ship, so there haven’t been many chances to seek her out yet, other than through Trollian.

Speaking about Nepeta, Terezi finds her in the cafeteria for lunch two days later, dumping a colossal amount of raw meat on her tray, and slides next to her, sniffing through the various food options to get all the red ones.

If she happens to have a bit of an obsession for that colour, she is not going to mention it.

“No luck hunting today?” she greets her new friend, and smirks when Nepeta whips her head around and smiles brightly at her.

“Unfurtunately, there is not enough wild fauna here fur a satisfactory hunt, and buying dead ones isn’t fun at all,” Nepeta replies, and there is a definite disappointed tinge to her voice, followed by the smell of ink and gasoline that Terezi associates to discontent. “I will have to make do with this!”

And with that, she pours enough grubsauce on the meat to drench it completely.

Terezi cackles, and finishes her red composition with a bottle of juice. She’s never been a fan of alcoholics, even though there’s enough of them scattered on the buffet table, because they tinge her senses in a way she doesn’t like, so she steers away from them.

They move through the crowd in search of a table, with Terezi hesitating just a second because the noises and the scents are somewhat clouding her senses, and she is not comfortable with so many people around all at once. Nepeta seems to notice, and looks at her with a curious wrinkle of her nose.

“You ok?” she asks, and she sounds even concerned, which makes Terezi feel an unidentified bubble inside her chest.

She’s glad she’s found a friend here, really, even one who doesn’t realise that Terezi is slightly at disadvantage in the run for the top.

“Don’t mind me, there’s just too much confusion in the cafeteria,” she admits.

Nepeta takes that in stride because she nods, not at all surprised by the confession; Terezi is glad, because they have just met and such a declaration of weakness usually is not shared so early.

“Yeeah,” she shrugs a bit, locates a table in a corner, and leads Terezi there, placing the tray down and flopping on the seat with a sigh. “I’ve lived in a cave meowself, so it’s annoying seeing so many trolls in one place!”

They eat and then swap their respective timetables, noticing how they seem to have the same free period for lunch, which means they can see each other every day.

“Did you find a good FLARP group already?” Nepeta asks her while she chews on a steak. A nearby troll seems somewhat disturbed by the trail of blood rolling down her chin, and shifts away. Terezi rolls her eyes.

“Nope! Unless we count you,” she says bluntly, and Nepeta winks happily. “I don’t think your moirail would like to join us?”

Nepeta wrinkles her nose, then wipes the excessive sauce from her chin and licks her paw… er, her hand. “Nah,” she shrugs. “Maybe someone will post a note on the billboard but until then it’s mew and you, dragon friend!”

Terezi sees nothing wrong with that.

***

Nepeta’s personal block in the communal hive is only three levels under Terezi’s, and the place is almost identical to hers, only that there are no scalemates anywhere and Nepeta’s floor is covered with fur pelts.

“I caught this one the day before I left for college!” she declares, proud and with her chest puffed out, as she shows Terezi a particularly big pelt of brown and grey fur.

Terezi tries and fails to contain the urge to bury her face into the fur to sniff it, and failing that, she digs her hands in it and breathes, rubbing her chin and grinning in appreciation. As she touches it, she realises it is quite bigger than it seemed to be as she sniffed it from the distance, the dangling legs longer than Terezi’s own arm, and twice as thick.

“That was a big one!” she feels respect for her new friend, because clearly Nepeta isn’t one to let go a good prey.

“I skinned it myself,” Nepeta continues proudly before letting the pelt drop on the ground.

Terezi’s attention shifts from the furs to the wall right in front of the door, her tongue lolling out of her lips as she breathes in the scent of paint mixed with blood, adding some more information to the hazy vision she gets of a wall covered with paintings.

“Oh, that’s my shipping wall, hehe!” Nepeta seems more bashful about it than her pelts, because she’s shifting her weight from one foot to the other as Terezi gets closer to inspect it better. “I wanted to add you there too, but I was waiting to ask you first!”

Terezi shrugs, not really bothered by the request, because all she wants right now is to lean in and taste the wall, but she isn’t sure Nepeta’s paint is safe to lick –she’ll have to ask– but she stays put and watches as Nepeta quickly draws a small face that she recognises as her own on the far right corner of the wall, placed neatly in a square void of other faces.

“If you have any quadrant filled that you don’t mind telling mew about, I can put that in!” Nepeta offers, fidgeting.

Terezi isn’t that used to catching small signals; she can read into a situation if that situation includes catching a culprit, and she can technically read people too, but she hasn’t had much experience with dealing with other people in the first few sweeps of her life, not before meeting with Karkat and Vriska in person, and even after that she has had limited interactions with other trolls before college. She’s learned to sniff them and gather more information like that, but she has a long way to go still.

Yet, she feels she can understand why Nepeta is so hesitant about it –this is personal, and it includes people Nepeta knows, and to show it to Terezi is a big show of trust that perhaps is bigger than Terezi’s casual mention of being unnerved by the crowd at the cafeteria.

She understands what Nepeta is doing and doesn’t find it strange she wants to reciprocate, though that will have to wait just a bit more.

At the same time, despite her lack of people-skills, she knows Nepeta waited to ask for her permission for a reason.

“I have a kismesis,” she offers after a small hesitation, and sees Nepeta’s face brighten up. “She’s in this campus too, though she’s been pretty busy, but maybe you’ll meet her soon”.

Then she helps Nepeta draw on the wall what she feels is a catchy caricature of Vriska, with a big 8itchy smirk and a 8luh 8luh written underneath in Vriska’s blood colour, which Nepeta mixes up fresh for her.

Terezi stares at the wall with her face and Vriska’s, and shivers. She’s never had anyone to tell about hers and Vriska’s relationship before, because Karkat always refused to get involved, so much that he wouldn’t even listen when Terezi tried to tell him (it wasn’t really his fault, though. Vriska was one of the things Terezi complained about most often and it drove Karkat crazy, and Terezi guesses this means he was afraid to get caught unaware in an ashen threeway); it feels… weird to have it down so openly.

She almost forgets they are official, because it isn’t so much of a big thing between them. Not yet, at least.

She thinks about the fact that Vriska was her first friend, even before Karkat. She thinks about all the things they shared before, how she’d thought that maybe they would end up pale, entertaining the thought during FLARP sessions together. She thinks about how differently things went, how it quickly turned into something different, pitcher than pale, pushing each other to their limits and pushing even more, retaliating with blood and claws.

She thinks about how they never admitted it out loud, but that they both knew, because Vriska dropped the black flirt she’d going with some troll nearby the sea without much more than a passing mention, and she thinks about their first kiss, right before they left the planet.

She wonders if this might be the right time to talk about it in person with Vriska herself, since she’s already gone and made it official with another troll.

When Nepeta returns with some snacks and a movie, Terezi finally reciprocates the trust and retells the gruesome tale of how she became blind.

It’s admittedly not Terezi’s best memory –what came after is the part she likes, when she managed a connection with her Lusus, who taught her how to see again. That’s the part she remembers fondly, not the pain, the burning, the feeling of being abandoned and confused. Things have clicked again afterwards, but it took a while.

She thinks it’s worth it though, talking about it, if only to ‘look’ at Nepeta’s wide eyes as she prods her face, fingers cool against her cheeks.

They settle down in front of Nepeta’s Vision Set to watch a movie together, and Nepeta is perfectly ok with Terezi licking the screen to ‘watch’ it better, even with the saliva streaks she leaves all over the screen.

Later, she even allows Terezi to lick the Shipping Wall (or well, just a bit on the side), even though they both quickly discover that no, the paint she uses isn’t tongue-proof.

(Next time Terezi visits Nepeta’s block hive, the paint has been swapped with a pleasant, non-toxic one that she can lick without a problem, but that’s not happened yet. It takes a while to wipe away the taste from her mouth and the stain from her tongue, and Terezi has to accept the fact that she’ll have a green tongue for at least the rest of the day.)

***

For the next month, Nepeta becomes almost a permanent fixture in Terezi’s academic life.

They have different courses to follow, of course, and have only a few hours to spare to see each other, but they make do, and they get along swimmingly fine.

Terezi brings her homework along to Nepeta’s block, where she slaves over the intricacies of Troll Law (well, not really. Most technicalities exist to make sure that the Legislacerator does not attempt to overthrow His Honourable Tyranny or bring deceit to His Court, which would get them culled) while Nepeta paints all over her block, or pours her attention on the books she is required to study for her own courses.

Equius is often around too, of course, and Terezi has grown to grudgingly like him, to the point where she does not find it too forwards anymore to poke him around and mess with him. In fact, Nepeta encourages her to, because a flustered Equius is easier to prod and easier to talk to, and Nepeta likes how she can get him to play with her more if Terezi annoys him first.

Plus, all the prodding seems to be working in favour of Equius learning to relax a bit, and Terezi is curious to see what might become of him with a bit of work. She hopes it will happen, because she might not be entirely _good_ , but meeting with Karkat definitely made her sympathetic to the rueful life of the emarginated. Being one herself due to her vision only makes her more determined to make him change, if only a little.

All in all, it feels a bit like home again.

After the first week, she manages to find enough time to go on trollian and is grateful to see page after page of grey, anonymous text Karkat left her decanting the joys and the pains of living in a communal hive in a campus far far away from home.

Terezi does not tell him, because she doesn’t like mushy things (they make her feel like she’s swallowed molasses), but she’s extremely grateful to see he’s still alive and nobody has discovered his true blood colour.

CG: IT IS SO NICE TO SEE THAT IN YOUR RACE TOWARDS THE TOP, YOU HAVE GLEEFULLY FORGOTTEN ABOUT ALL THE FRIENDS YOU’VE MADE AND LEFT BEHIND, AND I WAS SUCH A FUCKING USELESS GLOP OF SAUCE TO EVEN THINK YOU WOULD DEIGN US, AND BY US I MEAN *ME*, WITH ANY CONSIDERATION.

CG: IF I HAD WAITED ANY LONGER FOR YOU TO CONTACT ME I WOULD HAVE GROWN OLD AND WEARY AND WE WOULD HAVE BOTH ENDED OUR LIVES RETIRED WITH DISHONOUR SOMEPLACE FAR AWAY IN THE GALAXY, WHICH IS WHY I TOOK IT IN *MY* HANDS TO TALK TO YOU FIRST. 

CG: YOU’RE WELCOME, BY THE WAY. 

GC: OH, SHUT UP K4RK4T. 

GC: NO W41T, DON’T! 1 H4V3 M1SS3D 4LL TH1S 1NKY BL4ND GR3Y BULLSH1T! >:]

CG: I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN YOU WOULD INSTANTLY PISS ME OFF. OVER A MONTH SINCE I’VE HEARD ANYTHING FROM YOU, YOU COULD HAVE BEEN CULLED FOR ALL I KNEW AND OF COURSE THE MOMENT WE TALK YOU MANAGE TO REMIND ME WHY I FOUND IT SO ANNOYING WHEN WE SPOKE ON TROLLIAN. THANK YOU. PAST ME NEEDED THIS REMINDER. 

GC: 4WWWW, YOU M1SS3D M3 TOO! 

CG: OF FUCKING *COURSE* I MISSED YOU, YOU DEPLORABLE SACK OF SALIVATING LICKBEAST. DID YOU NOT SEE ME FLIPPING MY SHIT IN EVERY FLIPPABLE WAY ABOUT YOUR CURRENT STATE OF HEALTH? 

GC: K4RK4T HOW RUD3 OF YOU, OF COURS3 1 D1DN’T S33 1T. 1 C4N’T S33 4NYTH1NG, YOU DUMMY! >:[

CG: OH FOR THE LOVE OF... 

Terezi cackles happily. She’s missed Karkat, in all his easily angered righteousness, and she is glad to see living with so many other trolls hadn’t curbed him any. She is glad for that, or it wouldn’t be funny anymore.

Karkat seems intent in telling her every single detail of his life and how much past Karkat was a delusional fool for thinking that it would be easy to live in such a close proximity with other trolls, and then spends a few minutes ranting on how he will be surely culled and ripped apart in painful ways if anyone even so much as hints that his hemoanonymity hides a mutant colour.

It is surprising to even see him admitting this so casually in a chat, and when she pokes him about that Karkat reveals to her that it is mostly thanks to his moirail, Sollux. The guy is a top coder, and has secured his grubtop and the chatboard he’s using to contact her, installing a virus that will devour parts of their conversation that apply to certain topics if anyone ever hacks inside it.

Apparently his moirail –the same friend Terezi has yet to meet, a yellowblood with a particular knack for coding– considers it a bit of a joke to prod at him for how easy he flips his shit about it, but at least he’s good at what he does, and the chat is perfectly secure, as long as Terezi deletes her chat history if her grubtop is left where others can see it.

Karkat spends a few more minutes reminding her of how much this shows his trust and that this will probably bring him to an early grave, and she just cackles at him.

Other than that, Terezi is delighted to know Karkat has found some new friends too. She was a bit worried about him over that, but she shouldn’t have.

Between Karkat ranting about this particular light blueblood and his penchant for pranks and a greenblood who seems to enjoy growing her own vegetables in the communal hive’s grounds, which is against protocol and yet she always seems to make away with it, there is a particular someone who keeps popping up often, and Terezi can smell Karkat’s guts twisting from the other side of the grubtop screen.

Of course she pushes for more information, because the best way to become Karkat’s friend is to annoy the hell out of him. Both Terezi and his yellowblood moirail can attest to that.

CG: THE FUCKER IS EVEN WORSE THAN ME. AT LEAST I HAVE THE DECENCY TO KEEP MY SYMBOL VISIBLE, EVEN WITH MY HEMOANONYMITY! IT IS STILL LEGAL TO KEEP YOUR COLOUR UNDER WRAPS IF YOU FEEL IT MIGHT BE USED AGAINST YOU AS LONG AS THEY DON’T THINK YOU ARE HIDING A MUTANT GENE, BUT NO, THERE IS NOT A SINGLE CLOTHING OF HIS THAT HAS HIS SYMBOL VISIBLE WHERE OTHERS CAN SEE IT. HE REFUSES TO EVEN TELL ME WHAT IT *IS*!

CG: IF HE WANTS TO HIDE HIS COLOUR, I CAN UNDERSTAND. GOD KNOWS I’M POSSIBLY THE ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS THAT THE MOST. BUT DOES HE NOT GET HOW MUCH MORE DANGEROUS IT IS TO HIDE HIS SYMBOL? HIS LACK OF CARE IS AGGRAVATING, AND I DON’T WANT TO BE DRAGGED DOWN IF THE PATROLS EVER GET TO HIM. 

CG: NOT TO MENTION HE INSISTS ON WEARING DARK EYE APPAREL EVEN INSIDE BUILDINGS, WHICH MAKES HIM LOOK EVEN MORE OF A DOUCHE THAN NORMAL. AND HE’S ALREADY THE *KING* OF ALL DOUCHES. 

Terezi then tells him about Nepeta’s moirail, and how he’s the same –these shades of his stay on all the time, no matter where he is– and that seems to mollify Karkat a bit on the subject, since apparently it means there’s more douchebags out there, not just the one he knows.

Terezi hasn’t asked Equius why he’s always wearing shades yet, especially considering his strength and how many pairs he breaks just by handling them, but she knows he must have a good reason for it, and she isn’t _that_ interested.

Karkat might be especially annoyed with this weird troll (as yet unnamed) but Terezi knows that they might become friends sometimes soon. She remember how much Karkat would talk about Sollux, even without mentioning his name to her, and how he grated to his nerves, and yet… and yet now they’re Moirails, aren’t they? Because Karkat cares, and it’s obvious this troll hit something in Karkat to make him rant so much. Terezi has known him for many sweeps, and she already knows that given some time, he will rant about this troll in a friendlier, albeit equally wordy, way.

It has happened with Sollux, yes, but it has also happened between Terezi and Karkat. In fact, it’s weird to say even to herself, but once, Terezi had been pretty sure she would end up sharing a romantic quadrant with Karkat. It never happened though, even if Terezi sometimes still thinks about it, about the what-ifs (even if what she feels is not romantic, not anymore). it was almost a tentative possibility, but it never came to fruition, because neither of them actively pursued it. Their friendship never wavered, and she’s glad they are still in each other’s life, but she finds the distance annoying, and he does need more people around him to trust.

Two are not enough, especially if one of them isn’t even in the same solar system.

Thinking about trust makes her think about Nepeta, and that is a good subject change as any. Besides, she thinks it’s time she types a bit too.

So she talks to Karkat about Nepeta, and then about Equius, and about classes, and it isn’t until Karkat logs off to take a shower that she realises she’s talked for over an hour with minimal interruptions. The screen is now almost entirely teal, and she feels like her chest is lighter than before.

Talking with a friend does that, really.

Terezi makes a note to talk to him more often now that she’s settled down.

She scrolls back up, licking the screen to taste some of Karkat’s passages earlier on, then smiles and logs off too.

 


	3. Chapter 03

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have absolutely no excuses other than I totally forgot this fic is complete and I just have to update it and coding the pesterlogs is hell *sheepish*

**Chapter 03**

Terezi schedules a hate-date with Vriska for the weekend, and is pleased when there is enough time to introduce Nepeta to Vriska before they leave.

Vriska is an avid FLARPer, though a vicious and violent one, but Nepeta isn’t one to let herself be cowed and scared, and the three of them have quite a successful session before it’s time for Vriska and Terezi to leave.

It is by far one of the bloodiest FLARPing sessions Terezi’s had in the last few sweeps, but it leaves her with her chest burning and the feeling that Nepeta and Vriska do not really like each other much, which is… expected, really.

Still, they have fun, and that’s all it matters.

Afterwards, Vriska is particularly excited, because Terezi can almost taste the familiar 8 quirk even in her speech.

They walk through the crowd, the ship’s interior so tall and wide it resembles a planet all on its own (the ceiling is so far up that Terezi cannot smell it, and it gives the impression of disappearing into an actual sky. Sometimes Terezi almost forgets she’s stationed in a ship orbiting a planet. Almost.), but with the way Vriska walks, it feels like they are the only two trolls on the street.

Vriska’s attention is all on her, and it makes Terezi feel good.

The talk about their relationship went better than Terezi had expected, too. Vriska had appeared just as awkward and hesitant as her, but just as willing to give the quadrant its proper name, and Terezi has sniffed it in her voice that her feelings are still reciprocated.

It’s a reassurance, and it pumps Terezi to think that they’re taking more steps together like this. It’s smoothed over, and it works, and she likes to think that they’re still taking it easy but at the same time, it is official.

Vriska is _her_ kismesis, and damn, Terezi feels like she could take over the world.

They eat in one of the small fast-food restaurants in the campus, meat burger with grubsauce and chips, and then Vriska dares Terezi to write in red chalk all over the edge of one of the buildings.

They get chased away by a robotic guard who threatens them to a disciplinary note, but it is too slow and Vriska has rolled a six on a ten-side dice, which is enough to guarantee they are not going to get caught.

They squabble for the next three blocks, they throw paper balls at each other, hastily crumpling up receipts and random pages of notes that sail in the air and then fall on the ground unnoticed; they don’t care about leaving behind all this stuff to be cleaned up, because the drones will disintegrate all the paper balls so it’s not too bad.

One of the two (neither is sure who at this point) proposes to go to the edge of the ship and take a look outside; it’s a popular thing with new students, but it never gets old even if they stick around for a couple sweeps, and a lot of older students crowd in front of the doors leading to the terraces to get a few minutes to stare into the visible universe and the planet they are sharing an orbit with.

There is a bit of a queue to get there, but Vriska cheats (as usual) and uses her dice, and then both Vriska and Terezi push and elbow each other to get to the door first, grabbing the small bubbles of oxygen from the racks and attaching them to the neck of their shirts with barely a glance.

Terezi wins, hands grabbing the edge of the protective railing in one hand as she pushes Vriska’s face away with the other, and takes a deep sniff at the space in front of her.

You’d get a better view from one of the terraces south of where they are now, but even here the sight is pretty good.

The blackness of the space is peppered with glowing dots (all the stars and planets of the conquerable universe the trolls are living into), and they can only see the lower edge of the planet in orbit underneath them. It’s dark because the sun is on the other side, as usual.

Trolls are still nocturnal, and the ship follows the orbit by keeping on the opposite side of the planet all the time, so that the sun never shines on its surface. This sun is much more bearable than Alternia’s one, but it would still be too much for a species who is not used to so much light.

It’s hard to get a scent out of so much empty space, and the little Terezi can ‘see’ is vague and mostly black, but she remembers the stars from when she could still see, and with that she can pinpoint the little dots of bright light and map them out with her tongue.

Vriska lets out an undignified grunt when she flops down at her side, but she looks up with a satisfied smirk on her lips, and her hand casually (oh so casually) wraps around Terezi’s one. (Not before she elbows her painfully in the ribs, because Vriska is a sore loser.)

It is a bit sobering maybe, which is why they aren’t going to do it so often; Vriska does not enjoy to be reminded that she’s just one troll out of millions out there, and that her powers aren’t even that special or that powerful compared to many others. Being out there, breathing oxygen through a small bubble, feeling the cold of the space clash against the heat coming from the ship station, staring into the infinite void full of worlds they have never seen… it is humbling.

Terezi is reminded she has so much to do still and so many places to visit to learn all about Justice.

It feels quiet and peaceful, and it is not long Terezi longs to break this peace by annoying the hell out of Vriska, so she detaches herself from the railing, kicks Vriska in the shin, smirks down at her as she curses, and then goes back inside.

She idly thinks she’ll get Nepeta to come with her once. Maybe she might like it.

***

By the third month of college rolls by, five more trolls have dropped the course.

Two of them have been culled, one because she cheated too overtly, and the other because he offended a highblood classmate; that wouldn’t technically cause them to die, but the highblood had a very powerful mentor above, and well.

The other three moved on to other, hopefully greener, pastures, and Terezi does not know what happened to them. She doesn’t really care, because while some people might have dropped out, that does not mean things are easier for those who remain.

In fact, it gets harder.

The teachers give out trials and questions and challenge the students into winning all of them, and Terezi has so far the highest amount of victories in her tally.

She proudly displays them on the red sash she carries around in her modus, and Nepeta asks her once a week if there’s another scratched victory for her to recount.

By the time the exam period arrives, a few months later, Terezi is definitely on edge, but the adrenaline only makes her happier. Her blood thrums inside her veins with the need to show to all her classmates that they are going to be left in the dust, and it’s often enough that Vriska ends on the receiving end of long makeout sessions.

Those really help with taking some of the stress away, and so does spending time with Nepeta.

They have created a small FLARP group, where Terezi and Vriska usually team up against Nepeta and a new member, a brownblood troll who is hopeful he might get into the Cavalreapers squad class the next year.

He used to have a lot of FLARPing sessions with his best friend, but they are now living in two different campuses, so he misses the excitement of going on raids with her.

Tavros is a bit hesitant at first, and Vriska picks instantly on his insecurities, but Terezi doesn’t like when she bosses other people around and makes their FLARPing tense, so she puts her foot down and during one memorable campaign session, she turns on Vriska and joins Tavros and Nepeta to team up against her.

Vriska is sullen but suitable impressed by their cunning, and decides to stop with the bullying.

After all, she has started to grow fond of her new FLARPmates, and it wouldn’t do to alienate herself from them.

Even Nepeta has started to (grudgingly) get along with Vriska, and Terezi does not want this nice balance to topple over because Vriska is too much of a–

“Weeeeeeeell, and then I’d force you to choose between me and your other friends, and that wouldn’t be nice now, wouldn’t it,” Vriska wiggles her eyebrows at her from the couch she’s sprawled on, and Terezi rolls her eyes, sipping absently from her juice bottle.

“I’d toss a coin to choose, you know that,” she replies, though both of them are aware that Terezi wouldn’t, in the end, make any choice. Not with a coin toss, not with any other method.

Vriska is also aware that despite how tight they are, she won’t risk angering her. She might be always walking around like she owns the world, but Vriska is insecure about a lot of things. Thankfully for her, Terezi does not want to exploit that weakness in particular, because… well. You can mess with your kismesis, but not with your kismesis’ emotions.

The persecutor sees no coin, Terezi thinks to herself. But because of that exactly, Terezi won’t have to make a choice.

“Yeah, so when are you actually going to ask Nepeta out?”

Terezi flinches, and she can sniff Vriska’s smug smirk even without turning around to face her. “The persecutor does not understand the question,” she says, feeling her cheeks turn an interesting shade of grey.

“The persecutor goes bluh bluh bluh,” Vriska snickers, then throws a fry at her back. “Don’t even bother lying to me, my eye is perfectly capable to see! So answer me! It’s my right to question you about your other quadrants you know!”

Terezi has enough time to wonder if it’s just Vriska who knows, or if she’s been obvious, and either way that is still one too many who knows.

When Terezi refuses to talk, and buries her face in one of her books, Vriska groans. “Oh come on, it’s getting boring already, watching you two dance around each other so much! Why do you think Zahhak’s never around anymore?”

Vriska has taken a liking to Nepeta’s moirail, something that isn’t quite mutual considering how nervous and sweaty Equius gets around her (or is it?), so Terezi thought that was explanation enough.

Plus she had the gut feeling that Equius and Tavros _really_ do not go along either. Equius might have gotten better with dealing with lowerbloods, but that doesn’t mean he’s changed completely, and his superiority complex keeps weirding Tavros out.

It seems she’d read things wrong, which is a sour point.

Terezi frowns, a little bit disappointed that Vriska has found out. She knows that no matter how callous and bitchy she is, Vriska would never use her feelings for someone against her, at least in that she is a perfect kismesis, but that does not mean she wanted her to find out yet.

“He does noooooooot approve!” there is a gleeful tone to Vriska’s voice that finally makes Terezi turn around, still self-conscious and a bit annoyed. “But I do! So when do you plan to tell her? Should I do it? I can’t make you do anything but I could–”

“Last time I checked we were talking about _my_ red quadrant,” she interrupts her, and Vriska rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. I knoooooooow. But it’s not _funny_ to be watching from the side without being able to do anything!”

Terezi has mixed feelings about this, but then Vriska motions for her to come closer, and when she does, she drags her down into the couch. Neither has ever had a moirail, and perhaps it is in circumstances like this one that Terezi misses having one, but Vriska is, even before being her kismesis, her friend. Possibly her _best_ friend.

They had an almost fallout, which took some time to get fixed, but now they are back together and stronger than before, and it is because of that –because of their weird bond that mixes over between friendship and blackrom– that Terezi is able to accept Vriska’s gesture for what it is.

They don’t have a moirail, so if the contours blur a bit and they chat like they would in a pile, well… that is perfectly ok. It comes with the territory.

It also includes Vriska poking her in the ribs until she gives in and starts poking her back, but when finally Terezi admits that she’s waiting at least until after the exams, Vriska backs down and respects it.

There is enough stress about not being culled before the first semester ends, she can’t add the distress that asking a friend out would bring. Besides, she isn’t even sure Nepeta would want to, and she really doesn’t want to deal with a possible rejection before she’s got her exam results out of the way.

Now she understands why Karkat always hates to be teased about his quadrants. It’s always nicer to be on the other side.

***

It’s around the middle of the exam period, and three more trolls from her class have been culled, gruesomely, during a trial, when Terezi goes back to her hiveblock and finds an unread message from Karkat from earlier in the morning.

She sniffs it and blanches.

** CG: FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. **

** CG: HE KNOWS. **

Terezi doesn’t hear from Karkat for a week after that.

It’s a week spent racking her brain for possible explanations. It’s a week she spends by herself in the hive, refusing to answer Vriska’s confused inquiries and Nepeta’s worried ones. She doesn’t open the door when she hears Tavros hesitantly knock, worried about her, and she doesn’t leave the hive unless she has classes to attend.

This is… serious, and she’s almost shocked by how much she’s hit by just two words on a screen, but then she remembers this is about someone close to her, one of her best friends, and the panic is back again, engulfing her throat until she has to pace around, blinded because the tight panic is blocking her senses, and she can’t smell anything around her.

She has no idea how she manages to get through her third exam, because all she can think about is the possibility of Karkat disappearing forever, of being culled, of… but she finishes her exam, ruthless and merciless, and the result is that another troll is culled in her place.

She feels absolutely no guilt, nor shame –because it isn’t Karkat. It means nothing to her if a nameless troll dies. She survives. But she wants –she desperately wants– for her friends to survive just as well.

By the start of the seventh day, she is almost forced to face her fears and consider the darker possibilities. By then she’s barely slept, she’s left countless messages on Karkat’s trollian, and has been forced to acknowledge that this can’t go on, and yet she’s unable to focus on anything else.

So, when she hears the front door unlock, she doesn’t bother going to check. Footsteps echo in the corridor, and then all of sudden her nose is filled with Nepeta’s scent, and Terezi groans and slumps on the floor next to her recuperacoon.

“Hey? Terezi? You here?”

She growls something in response, and Nepeta appears on the door of her respiteblock, hesitant in going further in.

“I didn’t see you at lunch today, nor yesterday, and the day before either! So I was worried, and…” Nepeta doesn’t say that, but she’s received a message from Vriska earlier in the morning, and she had a long talk with Tavros and Equius too. “Is everything ok?” her voice is serious, and for once she foregoes a pun, and it’s that dissonance that pushes Terezi to react.

“Stuff happened,” she mutters. “Or well. Stuff didn’t happen”.

Nepeta hesitates one second more, then she slides into the room and she’s at Terezi’s side only moments later, sitting there quietly but not close enough to touch her, as if sensing that Terezi doesn’t need that.

They’re silent for a long while, and Terezi feels better just having someone there. It’s in these moments that she feels the need for a pale relationship, like a longing for something she wouldn’t usually need but that she has to admit would be nice to have right now.

She is always strong, because that’s the way she rolls, but it’s… disconcerting, and scary, to realise that there are situations that are out of her reach. She’d always thought that if Karkat ever had trouble, it would happen once she was already a certified Legislacerator, then she would help him because she would be famous and respected and feared. Not now, when she’s still nothing. Not now when he won’t even answer her texts. Not when he can disappear any moment and she will never _know_.

Her hands are tightened into fists and she bites down on her lip enough to fill her mouth with the tangy taste of blood, overpowering all her senses.

Nepeta doesn’t ask again what’s wrong, but Terezi tells her anyway –not the whole truth because it’s not hers to reveal, but enough to explain why she’s closed off from them, why she’s so worried.

“One of my friends might have been culled,” she says. Nepeta grabs her hand and squeezes it, and she squeezes it back, and they say nothing else, because honestly, what’s there to say?

She’s grateful for Nepeta’s presence, and knows that she has to do something, she has to… keep going. But that will be tomorrow. For now, she can still sit and wait, even if she isn’t sure about what’s going to happen.

It’s on the evening of the seventh day, after her second to last exam is gone, that her trollian window flashes on with a soft ping.

She barely glances at it, thinking it has to be Vriska, and then she dashes for her grubtop, heart racing in her chest as she looks at the familiar grey font waiting for her.

** CG: HEY. **

She breathes through her nose, her fingers tremble a lot as she hovers on top of the keyboard, but she manages to get something out.

** GC: K4RK4T? 1S TH4T YOU? **

The correct response would be something jeering and snarky, but that’s not what pops on the screen.

** CG: YES, IT’S ME. **

There is a long pause, but Terezi can see the little ‘waiting’ icon that signals that Karkat is writing. She only waits one more second, then her fingers still and fly to the keyboard again.

** GC: 4R3 YOU OK **

** CG: I… YES. **

There is so much relief flooding Terezi that for a moment her already blurry sight is even blurrier with the salty taste of tears, then anger follows the relief and eats it all away, leaving her fuming. Her fingers are still trembling but for a different emotion now.

** GC: K4RK4T YOU 4BSOLUT3 1D1OT! **

** GC: YOU D1S4PP34R3D FOR 4 W33K! HOW DO YOU TH1NK 1 F3LT?! 1 THOUGHT YOU H4D B33N CULL3D! WH4T TH3 H3LL H4PP3N3D?! **

** CG: LOOK TEREZI I... I’M SORRY I DISAPPEARED. I PANICKED. A MASSIVE PILE OF HOOFBEASTSHIT HAPPENED AND I COULDN’T DEAL WITH IT ALL. **

** CG: I’M SORRY I WORRIED YOU.  **

She forces the bile down, swallows around the acid taste in her mouth, and breathes in and out slowly. She’s still not calm, but she has to ask.

** GC: WH4T H4PP3N3D?  **

** CG: I… I WAS INJURED DURING ONE OF OUR PRACTICE MATCHES. I MANAGED TO KEEP THE WOUND UNDER WRAPS UNTIL I WAS BY MYSELF BUT… SOMEONE FOUND OUT.  **

** CG: I HAD PANICKED AND WENT TO MY HIVE TO TEND TO THE WOUND, BUT ONE OF MY CLASSMATES FOLLOWED ME AND SAW MY FUCKING MUTANT BLOOD TRICKLE ON THE FLOOR AND… WELL, YOU CAN GUESS THE REACTION THAT GOT, HUH?  **

** CG: I WAS PANICKING AND DID NOT EVEN THINK TO LOCK THE FRONT DOOR, LIKE THE DICKMONGERING ASSHOLE I AM. HE GOT IN AND SAW.  **

Terezi swallows and forces he anger to calm down.

She knows that no matter how hurt she’s been for the past week, it was nothing compared to Karkat’s shock, and the panic he felt.

She waits for him to continue, fingers hovering on the keyboard without touching it. Just waiting, and breathing, and feeling the tears dry on her cheeks.

** CG: I THOUGHT I WAS DONE FOR. I THOUGHT MY PATHETIC EXCUSE OF AN EXISTENCE WOULD END RIGHT THEN, THAT HE WOULD SELL ME OUT.  **

** CG: I FREAKED OUT. I MIGHT HAVE BABBLED. I DON’T REMEMBER.  **

** CG: SHIT, EVEN NOW THINKING ABOUT HOW CLOSE I’VE BEEN TO GETTING CULLED IS UNSETTLING AS FUCK, BUT AS YOU CAN SEE I... I’M STILL ALIVE.  **

** CG: THE GUY WAS ABOUT TO GO RATTLE ABOUT ME, AND THEN BUMPED INTO DAEVYD ON HIS WAY OUT OF MY HIVEBLOCK AND THE FIRST THING HE BLURTS OUT IS THAT I’M A TRAITOROUS MUTANT.  **

** CG: I THOUGHT I WOULD HAVE TWO TROLLS ON MY BACK READY TO GET MY ASS CULLED, BUT IT TURNS OUT PAST KARKAT IS NOT A BULGESUCKING MORON AND ACTUALLY KNOWS HOW TO CHOOSE HIS FRIENDS, BECAUSE.  **

** CG: WELL, IT WAS NOT PLEASANT TO SEE.  **

** CG: IT WASN’T EVEN A CLEAN KILL –THE MORON ISN’T A THRESHECUTIONER, HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW HOW THAT STUFF WORKS, IT WAS SUCH A CLUSTERFUCK... BUT...  **

** CG: FUCK LISTEN TO ME, PREACHING ABOUT METHODS TO KILL SOMEONE LIKE I’M AN EXPERT, LIKE I’VE EVER DONE SHIT LIKE THAT EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE TEACHING ME HOW.  **

** CG: AFTERWARDS THINGS WERE A BIT OF A BLUR. I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW HE GOT OUT OF GETTING PUNISHED FOR KILLING ANOTHER STUDENT... ONLY TEACHERS ARE ALLOWED TO DO THAT.  **

** CG: BUT HE SAVED MY SORRY EXCUSE FOR AN ASS RISKING GETTING CULLED OR EXPELLED OR SENT OFF TO THE PUNISHMENT RING AND HE DID IT WITHOUT THINKING AND FUCK. FUCK MY ENORMOUS PILE OF SHITTY LUCK.  **

** CG: NOBODY ELSE KNOWS AND HE IS NOT GOING TO HOLD THAT AGAINST ME EITHER.  **

** CG: I HEARD HE HAD TO GO THROUGH A DISCIPLINARY HEARING THOUGH. HE KEPT ALL MENTIONS OF ME OUT OF IT, BUT I HAD TO CALL SOLLUX TO REMOVE THE PRIVACY SETTINGS FROM MY GRUBTOP IN CASE THE PUNITIVE CLOG OF HIGHBLOODS WAS CALLED BY THE HIGHER RING OF SCHOOLFEEDERS. DIDN’T WANT TO GET CAUGHT WITH SOMETHING SO ADVANCED WITHOUT HAVING A GOOD EXPLANATION... I OBVIOUSLY DO NOT KNOW A SINGLE LINE OF CODING PROGRAM TO SAVE MY PITIFUL LIFE.  **

** CG: DID NOT FEEL SAFE TO TROLL YOU BEFORE I WAS SURE THINGS HAD FALLEN THROUGH. I FORGOT I HAD LEFT YOU THAT PANICKED MESSAGE AND I’M TRULY SORRY I WORRIED YOU.  **

Terezi blinks. The name, Daevyd, rings familiar, but it takes her a moment to remember why. It’s one of the friends Karkat has made at his campus, the other hemoanonymous troll. At first they didn’t get along at all, but much to Terezi’s amusement, Karkat’s attitude had mellowed out a little over time, and he’d grudgingly started a friendship with him and a few others.

Karkat’s colourful tales about Daevyd, Jaouhn and Jayade were always fun, and Terezi, while sad because she couldn’t be there with them, was at least relieved to know he was not alone nor keeping people away from him just to protect himself.

And now, she is even more glad that he had people at his back.

It surprises her that someone was willing to kill for Karkat –they are still young, and one thing is to watch teachers cull fellow students, the other is to do it themselves. Terezi has never killed anyone, and even Nepeta, who’s a good hunter, has only ever killed beasts and not fellow trolls. And it is especially true for someone like Karkat, who’s always been a bit of a wimp.

Terezi would be surprised to hear he’d hurt anybody unless provoked and even then, she would have her reservations about it.

But the relief to know he’s still alive, that he went this close to getting caught but he didn’t… it fills her whole, it’s like a full-body bath in cold water, and it washes through her, leaving her weary and defeated.

** GC: 1’M GL4D YOU 4R3 S4F3, K4RK4T.  **

She really is.

** CG: I AM, TOO. FUCK KNOWS I AM TOO.  **

She pauses, considering, then wipes her cheeks until they are dry and teal, and types

** GC: 1F YOU 3V3R D1S4PP34R L1K3 TH1S 4G41N 1’LL COM3 OV3R 4ND CULL YOU MYS3LF, K4RK4T.  **

Terezi is pretty sure on the other side of the galaxy, Karkat is weakly chuckling at her, and she’s pretty much ok with that. It might take her a little longer to settle down, however.

Or forgive herself for feeling so utterly useless.


	4. Chapter 04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go, on the wake of HS's final upd8, I need to bury myself in my own fics to fight off all the feels I still have (and it won't be easy).
> 
> To all of you fellow fans out there, we've been in this together until now! :)

**Chapter 04**

The following day, Terezi leaves her hive with a weird mix of emotions swirling inside her.

She has slept better last night than in the past week, obviously because her fears have been put to rest by Karkat finally contacting her again, and by his promise to send her a few message during the day, but that doesn’t mean she’s settled yet.

There is still an underlying fear thrumming inside her that hasn’t left, and she’s sure she knows why.

This is the first real wakeup call for her. Terezi has always thought to be strong, but her strength, her resolve, didn’t matter much when one of her closest friends is half a galaxy away, and she can’t really help him.

She knows she can’t move faster than this, that the echeladder she’s climbing can only take so many steps at once, but it’s still disappointing, and scary, to think that she almost lost someone important just like this.

It’s almost humbling, and it makes her suddenly worry about Vriska, about Nepeta, even about Tavros, because the guy is too gentle to keep going without something to help him along.

And yet they’re her friends, and she can’t stand the idea of seeing them getting culled before they’re all strong enough to fend against any attack.

She barely notices the dead bird neatly placed on the side of her door, but when she does, she is puzzled by the sight enough to pause, her thoughts reassembling around the mystery, tasting its novelty.

She dismisses its presence though, because she still has classes to go to, and she has to try and reassure her friends that she’s ok. She’s not entirely ok yet, but she will be.

She sends a message to Vriska, telling her about Karkat –Vriska knows, of course she does, meddler she is with her irons always in the fire– and the reply she gets is harsh and snappy, but Terezi knows how to read past Vriska’s words, and the overwhelming appearance of her usual quirk shows how affected by the news she is. She expects she will troll Karkat herself later in the day, because for how little they interact, they’re still friends.

She sees Nepeta at lunch, and much to her surprise Tavros and Equius are both there as well.

It takes Terezi by surprise, especially because she realises –with Tavros’ face melting into a relieved smile, with Equius’ usual stiff stance relaxing when she appears, with Nepeta’s joyous sounds at her arrival– that they are her friends, and they were all worried about her. Yes, even Equius, which is perhaps the most surprising part.

They have been busy with their exams, and Terezi still puzzles about Equius’ unwillingness to stick around more often, but they are here now.

Terezi is smiling a little as she reaches them, tray full of food because she’s suddenly really, really famished, and can’t remember the last time she’s eaten this week.

It is testament of how much Equius has changed that he does not cringe at her eating display, which is really not as dignified as he’d like for someone her caste.

“Are you ok?” Nepeta’s hand lingers on Terezi’s shoulder for a second more, and Terezi’s cheeks feel slightly warmer than normal.

“Yeah,” she replies, and her grin is a little more rueful as she shoves food into her mouth.

It is even tastier than she remembers for cafeteria food, or maybe it’s true what they say about finding stuff better after you’ve gone through a dark period. It’s not important though, not when Terezi’s eating and is surrounded by her friends. Not all her friends are here, but those who are, well, are very much appreciated.

She carefully considers what to say, then goes with the truth –a diluted version, but still the truth. Nepeta’s eyes are wide with happiness because her friend is still alive, and Tavros looks… weirdly touched by the subject, too. Terezi knows what he’s going through, and she makes a mental note to maybe talk to him in private.

She knows he’s having some second thoughts over whether he’s good enough to be a Cavalreaper, but the least she can do is be a good friend, at least for the friends she has at her side.

When she leaves for her next class, she gets a heartfelt hug from Nepeta, an awkward half-hug from Tavros and even Equius gives her a careful –oh so very careful, and yet it still hurts, leaving a light imprint of his palm on her shoulder– pat.

***

Terezi finds a dead mammal on her doorstep the next day too, despite having cleaned up the first one.

This time it’s a rat, it’s grey and Terezi can’t find out how it died, because there is absolutely no blood anywhere.

It is soft under her fingers when she picks it up and carelessly tosses it in the bin, and for a moment she entertains the idea to bring it to Nepeta –maybe she can do something with the fur– but then ultimately decides that the pelt would be too small to do anything with it, and throws it away.

It is weird because her hive is on last floor of the building, and it’s weird because there are no animals on campus, and she starts to think this might be some sort of prank.

She sends a notice with her grubphone to the central unit of the Cleansweepers to signal that they are not doing their proper job, and then goes to class and forgets about the situation.

During lunch, and then afterwards during their session of FLARPing together, she catches Nepeta looking at her, almost as if waiting for her to say something. Terezi wonders what it’s all about, then chalks it up to Nepeta being still worried about her, so she smiles a little and offers her a nudge.

Nepeta seems to brighten up considerably, and Equius just looks at them both, almost says something but then thinks better of it.

He’s here today too, and Terezi has to admit the continual show of support is nice. She thinks about their first meeting, and how she wasn’t sure she would ever like him, but she’s glad things have changed.

So she gives him a nudge and watches him get flustered by the contact, while faking being unaffected but clearly is.

He still leaves before they even start FLARPing, and Terezi doesn’t see him for a few days after that, but a show of friendship is not easily forgotten.

When the first rush of exams ends (and they have a week of rest before the last bunch starts), Terezi’s class has dropped down to twenty-four students. Six have been culled, and three have left for something probably easier. Terezi feels her confidence return, because it shows she’s been good even while she had other things in mind.

She devotes all her attention to getting through the rest of the half-sweep, because then she’ll have a name out already as an aspiring Legislacerator, and that will help her in the future.

Nepeta admits –when they are out by themselves to get some groceries– that her class only had three dropouts since the start, and nobody has been culled yet, which is a first for her course.

Terezi cackles at that.

“Don’t laugh! I purromise you that I’ll be the only one standing by the end of the first sweep!” Nepeta wrinkles her nose, and puffs out her chest.

She looks cute, Terezi thinks, and lethal.

Both things are good.

“Yeah,” she replies. “I believe the great huntress will definitely keep this promise”.

Nepeta seems oddly touched, and wraps her arm around one of Terezi’s for the rest of their groceries-hunting outing.

For the rest of the week, Terezi keeps finding more dead animals in front of her hive door, despite having Cleansweep drones pop around to check the neighbourhood twice to understand what was wrong with the cleaning robots.

They keep getting bigger, too, which surprises her because they start to be too big to bring up and down a flight of stairs to reach her floor, and she dared to take a sniff of the elevator and there is no smell of dead animals in there, although there are a lot of other equally distasteful scents lingering behind.

She’s checked with Vriska, too –the campus ship has no living animals there. The students are not allowed to have pets, or at least not as long as they are first sweepers. Once they enter their second sweep of college, they will be granted more liberties and less restrictions, including keeping pets and the ability to leave the ship to visit other sectors around the galaxy even during the week.

It is usually allowed because cultivating strong friendships –alliances– is seen as a good thing, and also because a lot of trolls have quadrants in other sectors, and it wouldn’t do to ignore relations like that; Terezi can’t wait to use this chance to visit Karkat and his friends.

But regardless of that, not many trolls, even those with a permit, keep animals. She does not remember having seen one, not even once, since she arrived. Besides, if a troll decides to keep a pet, considering all the rules and regulations they would be forced to adhere to, it would seem quite a waste to get one only to kill it and abandon the body somewhere, not even for a petty prank.

And yet, they seem to appear every day in front of her door. It is somewhat confusing, and she makes a note to investigate on it when her exams are over.

At least they don’t drop blood all over the floor, or she feels she might be accused of that.

Three days later, she finds the biggest corpse waiting for her as she leaves the hive. It blocks the entrance, and it is big enough Terezi could potentially eat it, if she wanted to, and it would be filling enough for two portions.

The fur is stained red, but it’s not blood –as usual, the animal’s cause of death is mysterious– it’s powder. Terezi remembers the smell distinctly, but can’t really connect it with anything at the moment. It might be that today is her last exam, and the hardest one so far, and that she hasn’t slept at all, but she can’t give this animal her full focus, not now.

So, instead of leaving it there for the cleansweepers, she drags it back into her hive and then leaves. It remains in the back of her thoughts for the whole morning, especially because she feels it would be a waste to throw it away –it’s big enough she could make something out of its fur, and it’s still the softest thing she’s touched in a long while– and by the time her class ends, she is fully awake and thrumming with adrenaline and excitement.

It was, by far, her most dangerous exam.

She came rather close to being defeated, but her ability to smell deceit saved her; she sniffed past her opponent’s tactics and twisted them around until she was the winner, further proof of her skills and her merciless attitude in court.

It is only luck that her opponent is a fellow tealblood; she came out wounded and bleeding, but she will survive. She is just a few shades lighter than Terezi, she is strong, and ruthless, and does not mind forging her own proof if needs be, and Terezi will be glad to face her again in the future.

She is aware that there will be more cullings as time goes on, the class is still far too large, but she is sure this one will not be one of them.

Terezi does not come out unscathed either, though. There is a painful scratch down her arm that bleeds down on the ground, but it looks worse than it is, really. She licks the blood and makes a face, then wraps it in a cloth. She wants to meet up with her friends first, because she needs to know they are all ok, so she heads to the cafeteria.

There is only Nepeta there, looking a little battered but also proud, and reassures Terezi that she’s heard from Equius and he did fine, too. He sends her his regards too, and Terezi snorts a bit, but is relieved.

“What did you expect? He’s _strong_!” Nepeta puffs her chest out, imitating Equius’ own tone when he talks about his own physical attributes, and she makes a good impression, especially when she tries to appear buff and awkward like her moirail.

“Well, sometimes strength isn’t enough –Equius might be strong, and he is! But! He lacks cunning!” Terezi chuckles, and elbows Nepeta in the side. “Guess he’s lucky we both have enough of that to spare for him too”.

They laugh, because it’s easier to do so than notice that some of the faces around them aren’t as happy as they are. Surely, some of their yearmates have lost someone they care for, but as long as they themselves are alive, things can still go on.

It would be… not normal to care too much for trolls outside of their limited circle of friends. Not normal, weird, and definitely worth a check by the drones, Terezi knows this. It doesn’t matter much, in the end, because if she thinks too much about it, she’ll start to see the holes in the big, absurd orchestra play she’s part of. She will notice that things are too controlled, too obstinate, and they are allowed not enough freedom. That might change once they are out of college, of course, but until then, she doesn’t want to pay much notice around.

Her Imperial Benevolence might come and change the way people act and react, she might even impart more of her different views on her people, but change will still be slow, and resistant, and wary.

Terezi’s fingers curl around her arm, which has started to sting a little, and refuses to pick up the grubphone to message Vriska. She knows she’ll be fine, but the sliver of worry is still around her, in the faces of those who’ve lost someone today, and in the faces of those who still have to face their own exams later in the day.

For now she breathes, watches Nepeta at her side as they both eat, and feels relief because they are fine.

***

It’s Nepeta who ends up insisting to go to the excrutimedic, because she doesn’t live in a cave anymore, and doesn’t have the things she’d use to treat herself now that she’s in a campus; Terezi has to agree –they are both sporting minor wounds that need at least some cleaning up, or they will get a disciplinary report. Winners are supposed to keep themselves in a good state, after all.

Since they both belong to the mid-to-high side of the hemospectrum, it’s easy for them to get in, even though the place is full to the brim with fellow trolls who have to get patched up.

Terezi can smell a lot of blood, multicolour strings that taste like everything, and they are a bit overwhelming but thankfully she’s long since learned how to filter them through, so she’s going to be ok. The downside is that the ground becomes a bit blurry, so she has to lean a bit on Nepeta’s shoulder.

She’s thankful that Nepeta doesn’t seem to mind.

It’s also Nepeta who notices Tavros sitting with his back against the outer wall of the of office hiveblock, and tugs Terezi with her to him.

He’s bleeding all over from what looks like a deep wound in his thigh, right underneath the hip. He’s so low because of his brown blood that a lot of trolls keep away from him, not wanting to be found in his proximity if a drone happens to pass by and he is too weak to protect himself, and that is also probably why he would not be allowed in, at least not until other higherboods are treated first and he’s bled too much on the ground.

He looks incredibly happy to see both Terezi and Nepeta, though, his expression shifting from pained to relieved in an instant.

“I, uh, I was worried but I guess you both ended up doing fine in your exams,” he says, and his voice is a little rough on the edges, and wary, and a little deeper than normal.

Terezi feels a little chill.

“Stop worrying about silly things and stand up, you’re coming with us!” she says ruefully. She doesn’t wait for Tavros to respond, because she’s already tugging him up, uncaring about his limp as he drags him along.

It ends up that Nepeta has to walk in front, with Terezi and Tavros following her, but between the two of them, they manage to get Tavros through with them as they go. Some other lowbloods look envious as they pass by, but they don’t look as mangled as Tavros and Terezi honestly doesn’t give a fuck.

The caste might see it as a favour that Tavros would need to return, but she doesn’t care. Her friends have nothing to do with her career, and if anything, they’re safe with her at their side.

It is a good thing that Terezi didn’t let him wait, because it turns out the last exam for the Cavalreapers’ first half-sweep is bloodier than her own.

They have absolutely no mercy, and they hold back for no one. If Tavros hadn’t used his ability to commune with the stead of his opponent, he would have been killed right on the spot, struck from side to side by a spear, which thankfully only passed through one of his legs.

It is still a bad wound, but Terezi doesn’t need to glare or seem menacing for the excrutimedic to give Tavros the same level of attention he’d give to Terezi or Nepeta.

Afterwards, when all three of them have been patched up, filled with prescription medicines and gauzes, they leave the grounds and pretend not to notice that a few trolls still waiting outside seem to be a little too still.

“Thank you,” Tavros says, and he means it, and Terezi slaps him on the arm and gives him a toothy grin, to which he replies with one of his own.

They are good.

As they walk away, tired and relieved, they can hear the tell-tale sounds of a drone’s metallic footsteps coming closer, and they do not turn around. They’ve had enough for the day.

Nepeta and Terezi end up having to walk Tavros to his block, a communal hive closer to Vriska’s place than Nepeta and Terezi’s, just to make sure the drones won’t find him incapacitated and cull him anyway. They don’t really mind, even if it’s a little far away. They have a long weekend in front of them, and Tavros can take things easy and heal by the time next week comes and classes resume for their last week before the allotted rest period.

Terezi feels the littlest stir of pale worry for Tavros, but determinedly ignores it in order to make sure he will troll her if he needs anything.

“I’ll be fine, uuh… see? I have enough food to last me till next week, and I don’t even have to cook it, and I’ll just play online or something”.

He seems like he wants to be alone –perhaps he feels tired, or maybe he needs to think. Terezi knows how he feels. They had a little chat before, and at least he’s still alive, so there’s nothing to worry there, and still…

Her arm aches a bit, and not pleasantly, not with the serum they injected her to speed up the recovery, but it still looks way better than Tavros’ leg.

“I’m serious,” she tells him, stern enough that Tavros chuckles. “I’m a lawyer, not a caretaker, but that will not stop me! I will FLARP as your fussyfuss lusus, and you will be unable to stop me!”

That sends Tavros into a tired chucklefest, especially when he reveals that his lusus is a little, floaty fairy bull, which for some reason makes both Nepeta and Tavros break down in laughter while Terezi kicks Tavros’ butt into his recuperacoon, but then it doesn’t take much for him to fall asleep, the sopor working quickly together with the serum and the pain, and Nepeta tugs Terezi out of the hive with a small smile.

“He’ll be alright,” she assures Terezi with a small nudge of her elbow. “Are you purrhaps considering filling your pale with him?”

“Nope!” Terezi denies it, shaking her head and steadily ignoring the definitely pale twinge in her thoracic cavity, because she has enough of Vriska on her hands, and her feelings for Nepeta, and she didn’t really expect to be able to think about filling three of her four quadrants so soon. “He’s my friend!”

Nepeta looks away, a little bit disappointed, probably because her wall has been lacking change lately, but then shrugs it off –she’s not really bothered, and it’s not like she has a say in all this.

There’s a thin veil between her desire to share her friend’s happiness by mapping their quadrants to her wall and butting in, and it is one she’s learned how to walk when she was still on Alternia, with her lusus.

She has not stopped drawing quadrants even now, because she likes it –likes the idea of match-making, of picturing ways for her precious friends to be happy and satisfied– but she would never attempt to push something that needs, or wants, no pushing.

Nepeta glances at Terezi once again, peering at her friend’s profile, the curve of her face so sharp and without softness, red unseeing eyes hiding behind red lens, and her lips curve a little upwards.

There is a little corner of her mural which she hasn’t shown Terezi yet, but that’s hers to know and hers only, at least for now.

Instead of speaking, she fiddles a bit with the hem of her coat, shuffling her feet a little, and hurries up a bit, and Terezi quickly falls in step with her, the two walking towards their own communal hive in silence.

It is a quiet walk but they don’t really mind, because they are tired, and they just went through one hell of a day.

Terezi’s arm stings, and Nepeta’s back probably stings just as much, so she expects that once they get to the hive, Nepeta will excuse herself and go right to her own recuperacoon to rest and relax for the remaining of the day.

She’s proven wrong.

“Want to come to my block?” she asks, her grin showing her fangs, and Terezi’s mind derails a little at the sight. “We could order takeaway and watch a meowvie!”

Terezi snorts, because that pun is a bit of a stretch, honestly, but Nepeta’s cheeky smile tells her she just needs to tell all the puns she wasn’t allowed to during her exams, so she elbows her and Nepeta rolls her eyes, and pokes her back.

“Sounds ideal,” Terezi finally admits, realising she hasn’t answered yet. “Though I’m not sure how long I’d be able to stay awake at this rate”.

She really feels like going to her hive to rest, but the idea of spending some more time with Nepeta actually sounds better, and besides they would just chill together and that would be… yeah, nice.

“Let me grab something from my hive first,” Terezi tells her, and Nepeta nods eagerly.

Terezi completely forgot she had a corpse abandoned near the entrance, and she almost stumbles over it when she enters her hive. Nepeta watches her with wide eyes, attention flickering to the animal before following Terezi, who studiously ignores her, trying to hide the flush on her cheeks.

She doesn’t like to be seen stumbling, but she really wasn’t expecting it.

After that long day spent doing exams, this isn’t a nice way to end it, really.

“Hang in there,” she says, shoving the animal on the side.

Much to her surprise, Nepeta makes no mention of it, and remains completely motionless while she goes to retrieve one of her scalemates and captchalogues a change in case she falls asleep at Nepeta’s hive.

The notion of Nepeta being completely disinterested with the animal on the floor ticks Terezi, especially now that she’s done with her exams and she can think about this new mystery, but the plans for takeout and some time with Nepeta honestly trump whatever mystery the dead animal holds for her.

She returns to find Nepeta furiously tapping away on her grubphone, and then she hastily captchalogues it again when she sees Terezi enter the block again.

“Ready to go?” she asks, but there is something off with her smell.

“Yeah,” Terezi replies, tilting her head to the side.

She takes a deep sniff, trying to understand why it feels like she’s entered a room full of violets, which is disappointment made smell.

“Are you… doing anything with that?” Nepeta seems to finally acknowledge the literal corpse in the room.

Terezi shrugs. “Not sure yet,” she admits. “It is really soft, and it smells like clouds, but there’s been a lot of them lately and I have no idea where the come from”.

The violet smell changes instantly to something darker, and Terezi distinctly catches the difference, taken aback by Nepeta’s surprise.

“They… appear there?” she asks, like she didn’t hear her correctly.

Shrugging again, Terezi nods. “I planned to think about them post exams, really, but that will be tomorrow because tonight we’re spending time together!”

“No! I mean! I think purrhaps you should focus on this furst!” Nepeta waves her hands a little, then smiles. She smells vicious, but also playful, and Terezi is intrigued.

“Do you plan to help this Legislacerator Dragoness with her chase, then?” she asks.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea! Hehe!”

“Wait, but what about our takeaway and meowvie?” Terezi can’t help the disappointment from bleeding into her tone, and it tastes even worse when it comes from her, and it is not a mistake when she uses Nepeta’s pun.

“Well, it can wait?” Nepeta fidgets, unsure.

There is suddenly an awkward air between them that Terezi cannot understand.

Terezi’s lips set in a frown. “No! This dragoness was set for a nice evening! She won’t allow to have that taken away from her!”

Nepeta’s unsure expression melts into a teasing grin. “Do you think the mighty Dragoness can decipher the mystery in the time it takes for mew to order food?”

It is a challenge, if Terezi has ever heard one, and there is no world or universe where she would be discouraged to take it. Especially if Nepeta seems so intent to get her to work on this before relaxing.

She’s tired and achy, but she can still do this. She’s the best after all.

Terezi breathes deeply, inhaling the mix of scents that make her world clear to her, and offers Nepeta a shit-eating grin.

“There is no doubt that the Dragoness deserves no less than complete faith,” she states. “I never fail”.

 


End file.
